About Last Week

I wanted to update everyone--especially the non-Memphians--on last week's show.  I opened for Cory Branan and Jeremy Stanfill at the Hi-Tone.  If you've read this blog and followed my show-dates in the past, you know that I'm a fan of Jeremy; if you've ever spent 30 seconds around me, you know Cory's one of my all-time favorite artists.  So, it was a real honor warming up their crowd.

There's some added pressure playing for someone like Cory, whose music I've admired for such a long time.  Several of you were sweet enough to write before and after the show to ask if I was nervous.  The honest answer is "no."

Once upon a time, when I first started playing out in Nashville, I had a short phase of stage fright.  I got nervous before, during, and after every show.  Thankfully, that phase only lasted a few weeks.  Later, I'd occasionally get nervous before a show if it was a new challenge--a new city, a new venue, a bigger crowd that I was used to, etc.

Now, if I feel prepared, I rarely get nervous.  The things that make me edgy are mid-show problems.  For example, a problem with the sound system, or vocal health, or some disturbance in the crowd***--those things can disrupt the flow of the show.  But just getting up there and playing?  No.  It's only fun, regardless of room, crowd, or other artists on the bill.  I trust myself, and if I'm prepared and healthy, I'm relaxed. 

(***Note: When I say "disturbance in the crowd," I'm talking about an argument or issue not involving me.  For some reason, I don't mind any hostility/friendly heckling directed at me.  But every now and then I'll be mid-song and hear a shouting match or a fight in the front row; that makes the rest of the crowd uncomfortable and distracted, and it's always a challenge getting everyone relaxed after that.)

As for the show itself, everything went great.  I played a half hour, Jeremy played a half hour, and Cory played for the rest of the night.  Here's my setlist:
"If You Don't Love Me By Now" (Up)
"Coldweather Girls" (Up)
"Shine" (Tin Angel EP)
"Thirteen" (Big Star cover)
"Amy's Gone Away" (unreleased)
"Never In Love" (unreleased)

Because Cory's music is so listener-friendly, the Hi-Tone was set up for listening: folks sat around tables throughout the room, and everyone was quiet and attentive.  Of course, that's any opener's dream, especially any singer/songwriter: a roomful of people listening.  So, thanks again to everyone for being so nice and engaged.

During "Thirteen," I heard someone up front singing high harmony on the last line of each verse ("take you," "shake you," "make you,").  Of course, it's always too dark to see who's doing what in the crowd.  I just enjoyed it and kept playing.  Later, Cory and I talked briefly, and he was really kind about the set.  He said he wanted to join me on "Thirteen" but didn't want to step on my toes, so he sang along from the table.  Turns out he was the phantom harmonizer.  I told him to "step on my toes" whenever he wants--next time, we'll sing it together.

Of course, Jeremy absolutely brought it and Cory was as good as I've ever seen him.  He played a lot of songs that will be on the next record.  If the live performances are any indication, it will be scary good.  Can't wait for it.

One more cool note: Ben Nichols (singer--Lucero) and Steve Selvidge (guitarist--Hold Steady, Amy LaVere, a million others) were also in the crowd last Thursday.  They're two more of my favorite Memphis musicians, so it was cool seeing a chunk of my record collection represented.  Felt like a nice homecoming.  If you're picturing a lot of moments where I'm trying my best not to geek out, you know me too well.  I walked around for four hours with a huge dopey grin.

I'll wrap up with a video from the show.  This is a brand new song I debuted last Thursday, and I'm not sure it's 100% finished.  Anyway, it was a blast to play--let me know what you think!

Chris Milam, "Amy's Gone Away" (5-26-11)

Song of the Week: Roman Candle, "Early Aubade"

I first heard of Roman Candle through their publishing company in Nashville--a friend who works there gave me a copy of Oh Tall Tree In the Ear.  I didn't listen to it until several months later, though, when a former bandmate of mine (monster axe-man Stanton Adcock) began playing with them on tour.  So, sometime last spring, I hit play.  Out came "Eden Was a Garden."  I listened to nothing else for a week.  I liked the album immediately for its energy and its wealth of melodies (not all vocal).  Later, I fell in love with its lyrics.

Roman Candle's writing is deliberately poetic and lyrical.  For example:

I could wish against the dawn of day, sit and wish that we could stay
In this room we could wait til the tears come
Oh but that don't work for me and you, doing things the way we do
It'd be a conchshell stuck to our eardrum
With every passing minute as a faint-heard roar
Of a rolling ocean talking about some road we've never seen before...

Verses like that are hard to come by.  They're even more rare from a rock band.  You can read Roman Candle's lyrics on the page (or at their site) and hear Auden, and Eliot, and Whitman.  Hell, they name-check Milton.  And while citing The Greats is one thing (anyone can quote Shakespeare*), writing great is another.  Roman Candle's lyrics are more than rich, rewarding, intellectual conceits that develop an idea, or tell a story, or give us some fresh imagery.  Read (or sung) aloud, they're beautiful.  Whoever's writing them has a poet's ear.

So, a year later, I'm still finding new things to love about this album.  Each song is full of new musical nooks-and-crannies to explore, new favorite lines, a guitar part that just catches the ear, etc.  Or, in this case, a really cool songwriting trick that's so well-executed I didn't hear it the first dozen times.

Song of the Week: Roman Candle, "Early Aubade"

Okay, click that link and listen (couldn't find a YouTube video for it).  Maybe listen a second or a third time.  I listened to this song several times before I realized something was strange about it.  I listened a few more times before I realized what that strange thing was: "Early Aubade" is backwards.

I'll explain...

This is a verse-centric song.  As you can hear, there isn't really a chorus, and there isn't really a bridge.  It's just a series of verses--without a refrain--that tell a story, and the music helps it along.  When a song stays the same structurally, songwriters like mix it up musically/melodically/etc to keep the listener engaged.  In other words, "I'm playing the same chords, but now a piano's joined me!"  You need to mix it up one way or another.**

A few examples:
--My song, "In the Air Tonight" has a chorus, but it's really a verse-heavy song.  To avoid redundancy, I added more instruments and background melodies in each passing verse.  The song "builds" to a climax before the final line. 
--Josh Ritter writes a lot of these songs.  "Girl In the War" plays with the song's arrangement to build drama and give the ear something new to latch onto as each verse is being sung. 

In other words, a common way of recording these songs is to add instruments and build the drama.  But in "Early Aubade," Roman Candle does the opposite.  The first verse is the loudest, biggest, and feels the most cathartic.  Every subsequent verse strips away ornamentation; as the lyric gets more intimate, so does our production.  Finally, we're left with only one singer, one guitar, and one open-ended hypothetical.

Pretty cool, huh?  It's a simple twist on an old technique, but 1) I've never heard it before and 2) it's executed to perfection.  As startling as the difference from first to last verse is, it's easy to miss the transition as it's happening.  It's especially fun to contrast with the album's other bookend, the first track "Eden Was a Garden."  "Eden" takes the more conventional approach, beginning with the lone guitar and singer and building up to a climax.  Ten songs later, "Early Aubade" inverts the formula, employs a similar melody, and invites song-to-song comparisons. 

I'd recommend playing "Early Aubade" the next time you're driving on an empty street in great weather.  I'd recommend playing it loud.  And I'd recommend getting the whole album.  I promise, it'll last you a while.

(*Yeah, I'm looking at you, Mumford.  Easy, people--I'm a fan!  But the "they're quoting Shakespeare!" blurbs are just silly.  I wish writing "E = MC2" meant I magically didn't suck at math.  But yeah, I still suck at math.)
(**Unless you're Bob Dylan and you're writing "Desolation Row," in which case you can do whatever the hell you want.)

Song of the Week: Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"

And we're back!

First, thanks for all of your emails last week.  When I asked for your suggestions for the blog, you certainly responded.  All of the feedback was appreciated, and many of your suggestions overlapped.  A few themes I noticed:

--You like the Another Cup of Coffee series
--You like Mad Men (not sure what this has to do with the Blog, but sure, I appreciate it)
--You like it when I rant about something
--You like emailing me instead of commenting in the comments section
--You'd like me to "suck it"
--You like Song of the Week

Who'm I to argue?  Let's get right to it...

Song of the Week: Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"

I have no clue how much anyone knows about Fleet Foxes.  An extremely long time ago (like 1982, man!), there were the Pop Bands Everyone Knew (say, Kiss), and the Bands You Knew If You Were Paying Attention (say, R.E.M.).  Through the 80's, 90's, and even part of the 00's, there was a delineation between artists the general public had heard of, and artists the "real music fans" had heard of.  Loosely, "big" bands vs. "small" bands.  The people that received music vs. the people who actively sought it out.  Top 40 radio vs. college radio.  Rolling Stone vs. a local fanzine.  Etc.

Twenty years ago, Fleet Foxes might've been in the latter camp.  Their philosophical lyrics, folk influences, and organic production would've made them a favorite of college radio, indie publications, and the general "small band" set.  And today, they surely are darlings of niche radio stations and indie blogs.  But they're also signed to a major label subsidiary, they've played SNL, their first single has 4 million YouTube views.  This winter, Cake topped Billboard's charts by selling 40,000 records in a week, the lowest number ever for a #1 rock album; Fleet Foxes have gone gold in North America and the UK.  They're technically big (relative to 2011), but most of my friends can't name one of their songs.  It's the Age of the Small Big Band, and Fleet Foxes might be its posterboys.  

So, I have no feel for how much anyone knows this band, or really any band I talk about.  I'm constantly having conversations where people ask, "what are you listening to?"  And if I say "have you heard Fleet Foxes," I get one of two reactions with NOTHING in between:
1) Everyone at the table immediately groans, rolls their eyes, and says that not only do they know Fleet Foxes, they were "over" them by 2008, man.  OR...
2) Everyone at the table looks at me like I grew a second head and says, "is that Roald Dahl?"

Maybe you're in the first camp, maybe you're in the second.  Maybe you're the first person I know who occupies some heavenly middle ground.  Either way, here's a quick intro/trip down memory lane:
1) Think Crosby, Stills, and Nash meets Pacific Northwest meets Gen Y optimism meets Jeff Buckley meets beards.
2) This.
3) And this.

Anyway, this month they released their second full album, Helplessness Blues.  I've been listening to it a lot, mostly the title track. 

I really like this song for a hundred reasons (#1-38 are some version of "it's fucking gorgeous"), but I'll write about the two I find most interesting:

1) The Quarter Life Question.  People think of my generation as a still-emerging class of tweens, adolescents, and nascent college co-eds.  We're not.  The generation roughly defined as the "Millennials," "Gen Y" or, as I call them, "people I hang out with who aren't my brother," was born in the 1980's.  Which means pretty much all of us are somewhere between "post-grad" and "nearing thirty."  In other words, we're no longer tweens; we're twentysomethings.  We've talked about "The Future" for a long time.  We've considered "what I'll do when I grow up" for even longer.  Well, it's kind of here, right?  We're technically adults, aren't we?  And, whether we mean to or not, we're answering some of these questions, we're making some of these decisions, and we're shaping that future.  

Those questions can be heady.  They can be even headier if you're unsure about your answer.  They can be even headier if you've made an answer and realize, a year or two later, that it was the wrong answer.  "Helplessness Blues" is one of the only songs I've heard (by a popular artist in recent years) tackle this explicitly.  In fact, the whole album seems at least tangentially to be about a Quarter Life Crisis.  And, near as I can tell, it's one of the first from a pop band of this generation.  Congrats, everyone--we're out of the mall!

2) The Anti-Millennial Answer.  If the countless articles about Gen Y have told us anything, we're (in no particular order):
1) ambitious, but lazy
2) self-absorbed
3) entrepreneurial
4) dependent on our parents
5) entitled
6) innately tech-savvy
7) blessed with perfect smiles (because of braces, you see)

Now, listen to this.  



I was raised up believing I was somehow unique...
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me...

The only thing more antithetical to the Gen Y stereotype than being a "functioning cog in some great machinery" is wanting to be one.  Though the song is surely about one man's existential crisis, it's an assault on the perception of who we are and what we value.  And I'll be honest: I don't know who we are or what we value.  Neither does the song ("and I don't, I don't know what that will be...").  That's kind of the point. 

Like everyone else, I've read that recycled Newsweek article every year since I was sixteen.  And--maybe like everyone else--I've been at odds with my peers for a long time.  We are self-absorbed.  We can act entitled.  We could stand to do more walking and less talking.  And we're frequently awful, solipsistic, distracted company.  Hell, I'm public enemy #1: an independent musician blogging in a coffee shop.  I truly believe our heart is in the right place, but I worry about our head.

That's why "Helplessness Blues" is such a breath of fresh air; it's nice to hear a counterargument.  It's good to hear a statement of selflessness in action instead of in theory.  It's nice to hear confusion expressed as a fact of adulthood, not another feeling on a diary's page.  A Gen Y male's fantasy life might involve a non-nuclear family, independent wealth gleaned through entrepreneurial and technological savvy, and general world-beating by creating your own little world.  This song ends with an alternate fantasy of the "good life": he could work an orchard "til he's sore" and she could wait tables.  Living simply, and honestly, and in service of something.  It sounds like my grandparents' generation rather than mine.  It sounds nice.  It sounds new, but old.  It sounds great.

Another Cup of Coffee with Cory Branan

For those just catching up, I do a monthly feature with the Vinyl District.  I interview a different person in the Memphis music community: artists, sound guys, business people, superfans, etc.  The idea is that, over time, we might see how all the pieces fit together to make something really special.  It's called Another Cup of Coffee.

This month, I got to talk with one of my favorite singer/songwriters, and someone whose music I've praised often in this space.  I think y'all will really enjoy our conversation--I know I did. 

So please, hop on over to TVD and enjoy Another Cup with Cory Branan!

(Note: To read all the past Another Cups of Coffee, click here.  You can stay updated on all my blog posts, here and elsewhere, by subscribing to the blog or bookmarking this page. 

Also, if you'd like to subscribe to TVD Memphis, click here.)

Su Casa

Eyes on the road.

Something's been bothering me lately.

I've been thinking that, for the most part, this blog has been a one-sided affair.  I post, you read, you reply, rinse, repeat.  Instead of posting a Song of the Week and coasting into Saturday, I'd like to break that cycle.  And I need your help.

I want to hear from you this weekend.  What are your favorite parts of the blog?  What could you live without?  What topics do you wish I'd write about more?  Which specific posts were your favorites?  Least favorites?  Tell me anything on your mind.  I promise you won't hurt my feelings.  I love writing all of it, mostly because I love sharing the whole dern musical experience with y'all.  

So, let me hear it!  Comment below, or write me on Twitter, or send an email with the subject "Blog." 

Thanks, as always, for your comments and thoughts here at the Blogeroo.  Every email/tweet/comment this weekend will be read and replied to, I promise. 

I'll see y'all here Monday for Another Cup of Coffee.  I think y'all will be excited about this month's guest--I definitely am!

TGIThursday,
CM